Five Ways Marcus and Neroon Weren't Outed
by Hikari no Tenshi2
Summary: My silly effort to cheer up a listsib on the Delusions yahoo group. Should not be taken seriously.


Originally part of a challenge posted on Delusions (the Marcus/Neroon Yahoo Group), this was intended to cheer someone up. I'm not sure how well it succeeded, but here you are.

**Five Ways Marcus and Neroon Weren't Outed**

The battle was fierce. Marcus was sure that he and Neroon would both go down in the next few minutes, despite their superior skill. The enemy didn't have their training, but they did have the advantage of numbers, and the fight had been dragging on long enough that it was starting to tell. Marcus was drenched with sweat, exhausted, and really almost willing to simply give up, if that hadn't gone against every instinct he had.

Somehow, though, when he saw the pike aimed for Neroon's back, at an angle that would aggravate one of Neroon's recent injuries, he found a new well of strength.

"Anla eh'hake!" Marcus shouted, leaping across to block the strike and knowing he would never get there in time. To his shock, though, their opponents froze in place, turning to stare at the human as if a Vorlon had just appeared in their midst. Around the edges of the training ring, an equal number of eyes locked on to him.

Neroon, who remained unaware of the injury he'd narrowly escaped, turned slowly and leaned on his own pike, watching Marcus without saying anything.

"What?" Marcus asked. "He was about to hit you across that gash you got on our last mission! It hasn't even completely healed yet!"

Neroon looked down at his attacker, whose big eyes were roving madly between the two adults. "Marcus, he's five cycles old, and he's holding a stuffed denn'bok. He couldn't possibly have done more than tickle me."

Marcus flushed. "So sue me for worrying," he grumbled. "Why did they all stop like that? Surely this isn't the first time they've heard someone call out for their sparring partner to watch their back?"

To Marcus' astonishment, the cerulean patches on Neroon's skin darkened in the Minbari equivalent of an embarrassed flush.

"That… isn't precisely what the phrase you just used means, in the Warrior tongue," Neroon explained sheepishly.

"Well then what does it mean?" Marcus snapped, becoming a little bit uncomfortable with the number of eyes on him.

Neroon's patches darkened further. "It, ah, doesn't translate well. It's more in the subtext. It means that you're watching out for my well-being before your own."

Marcus looked down at all of the children of the Star Riders clan who were staring at him with wide eyes, and then up at their parents, who seemed split fairly evenly between amusement and shock. The he looked back at Neroon.

"I just told you I loved you in front of your entire clan, didn't I?" he asked.

"Er, Yes," Neroon admitted.

"Oh Valen," Marcus sighed, as the adults recovered from their shock and began to chuckle. "This is all your fault, you know. You could have just told me what that phrase really meant."

Neroon nodded. "Perhaps that would have been wise," he admitted, just as his mother pushed through the crowd in full matriarch mode and descended upon them to begin planning the wedding.

***

Sheridan looked around at his command staff, assembled off-duty and in their sleepwear to deal with the latest emergency that had struck Babylon 5. You could tell a lot about a person by their choice of sleepwear, he mused, concealing a yawn behind his hand as they waited for the uplink with the Whitestar to return.

Ivanova, for instance, was in a fairly sedate black nightgown with a robe over it. Delenn was in some sort of white Minbari robe that didn't look all that much different from her religious regalia, to John's untrained eye. Garibaldi was a plaid pyjamas kind of man. G'kar was in a rough homespun robe, and Londo was in the finest of silk nightshirts and dressing gowns. Kosh was, of course, completely covered by his encounter suit; Sheridan didn't even know if Vorlons wore clothing apart from the cumbersome self-contained atmosphere units. Dr. Franklin was still in his lab coat; Sheridan was really going to have to speak with him about the hours he was putting in in medlab.

It was Marcus who was the real surprise, though. If John'd had to make a guess – and it wasn't like he didn't have better things to do with his time than ponder his command staff's sleepwear, honestly – he'd have pegged Marcus for a sweats-and-t-shirt kind of guy. Something practical, well-worn, and easy to move in. Something you could conceal two or three dozen small and undoubtedly lethal surprises in.

What the Ranger had appeared to the meeting in was the farthest thing from; flowing black silk that definitely bore a closer resemblance to Delenn's robes than to anything the human members of the station were wearing. Sheridan shrugged. The man had spent a fair amount of time on Minbar; maybe he'd picked up a few habits. The transmission from the Whitestar was finally coming through, and Sheridan put his speculations behind him as he turned his attention to the meeting, pausing at one point only to send a young officer in search of Alyt Neroon, who was currently docked with the station and whose input would be invaluable. He didn't notice Marcus blanche slightly before he turned his attention back to the stellarcom unit.

"You summoned me, Captain?" Neroon's voice boomed out from behind him. Sheridan turned, expecting to see the Alyt in his full Warrior Caste armour, despite the late hour.

His jaw dropped as he took in the sight in front of him. Neroon's uniform boots had been hastily pulled on over a pair of human exercise pants, and the Minbari's torso was covered by a red t-shirt that proclaimed "Rangers Do It In Dark Places No One Else Enters" in gothic black script. A cloak had been hastily flung over it all.

"Oh bugger," Marcus muttered from the other side of the table, as shocked eyes looked back and forth between the unlikely pair.

***

"This isn't what it looks like," Neroon assured his sister as he lay pinned to the floor of the Ingata by Marcus' weight.

"Of course not, brother," Ardiri answered, her expression equally neutral.

"He fell while he was repairing one of the upper circuits; I caught him to prevent him hitting the floor."

"Understanding is not required, brother," she answered. "It is enough that you tell me there is a logical explanation."

"I'm glad of your acceptance, Ardiri," Neroon said. "There are many in the Warrior Caste who would come upon such a situation and jump to any number of wrong conclusions, and they would then challenge Marcus. I don't wish harm to come to him."

Ardiri smiled. "He is your friend, and a guest of our family while the Ingata is berthed for repairs, Neroon. I am hardly going to come after him with my denn'bok for falling on top of you."

At that moment the human subject of their conversation stirred faintly. Unaware that anyone had heard the crash and come to investigate, he burrowed further into Neroon's shoulder.

"Thank you for catching me, Ah'cala," Marcus murmured. "But you saving me from myself needs to stop becoming such a habit, or people will talk."

Neroon's utter stillness clearly communicated to Marcus that all was not well, and he looked up into twinkling dark eyes.

"It isn't what it looks like, Neroon?" Ardiri chuckled.

"Sister…" Neroon began.

"No, don't explain. Aunt Aalann will be so happy she can stop matchmaking for you!"

Neroon sighed heavily as his sister danced out of the room. "Aunt Aalann's matchmaking was the whole reason for the secret in the first place; she'll plan a state wedding!" he called after her, before turning his full attention to the human valiantly smothering laughter in his shoulder.

***

"All right, so evidently the Fresh Aire was the wrong restaurant to propose to you in," Marcus admitted as they stood to face Ivanova and Sheridan.

"Yes," Neroon agreed, still unable to believe that after successfully keeping their relationship to themselves according to Minbari tradition for months, on the eve they decided to make it official and begin the public announcements – the first of which should have gone to their families – they had been thwarted by an accident of fate.

"So," Ivanova smiled a little bit evilly at the human Ranger. "Does this mean I finally have an excuse to buy that ridiculous unicorn-shaped pillow for you, as a bachelor gift?"

Neroon didn't understand why all of the humans in the near vicinity started choking back laughter, or why his mate turned such an interesting – and unexpected – shade of red, but there had to be a logical explanation.

He hoped.

***

"Garibaldi, I can assure you that there are few things I would rather do with my time than this!" Marcus objected as the security chief hauled him along in his wake. "I really must protest!"

"Yeah, well, so do the rest of us, but we don't have a choice. Somebody's been successfully blackmailing high-ranking members of several species' military forces, using secrets that aren't all that damaging but that would cause a significant amount of embarrassment within the command structure. So Sheridan's decided that the best way to deal with it is to haul all of our secrets out into the open, and he's had Lyta set up a telepathic interface into a VR generator to do it."

Marcus struggled a bit harder. "I'm not in any way involved in the command structure of this station!" he objected.

"No, but you are the liaison to the Rangers, and that means that you're important enough to potentially be at risk. So you're joining us. Now move!" he shoved the protesting pain in the ass into the captain's office and followed him in, shutting and security-locking the door behind him.

"We're all here, good," Sheridan started. "I know none of us are comfortable with this, but if it's any comfort, we won't be looking at really deep, dangerous secrets. That's not what our blackmailer's after. He's after the little, niggling embarrassing personal problems we all have. And I'm sure we're all mature enough to deal with this situation, and never speak of it again. Am I right?"

An unenthusiastic chorus answered him, followed by several long, uncomfortable minutes while Lyta dragged their embarrassing personal problems up out of their consciousnesses and into the VR generator to be viewed by the rest of the command staff.

"I really don't think I should be part of this," Marcus objected one last time, trying to forget the things he now knew about his co-worker's habits. Especially Garibaldi's three favourite things in the universe.

"You're doing it, Marcus," Sheridan commanded. "I won't have any of us put at risk by this lunatic."

Marcus sighed, and submitted to the light link Lyta was establishing. "Don't say I didn't warn you," he commented as his personal problems took fuzzy and somewhat poorly coloured form in front of them.

"Marcus, we're supposed to be getting potential blackmail information," Sheridan pointed out after a minute spent watching Neroon reading on a sofa.

Marcus flushed. "You are, Captain." The image changed as Neroon looked up, smiled, and then pounced on the now-visible holographic Marcus. "My embarrassing personal problem is an overly-affectionate Minbari Warrior, whom I was insane enough to agree to marry."

He walked out of the office before his colleagues had finished picking their jaws up off the floor.


End file.
